NaturZoo Rheine, in Germany, is excited to share news of the arrival of their newest Gelada Baboon baby.

Photo Credits: Eva Bruns / NaturZoo Rheine

The baby was born October 13^th and is the sixth Gelada Baboon birth, this year, at the zoo.  The new birth brings the total number of Geladas, currently kept at NaturZoo, to 65.  The zoo has the largest group of this unique primate species of any zoo worldwide.

For more than 20 years, NaturZoo Rheine has kept the international studbook for the Gelada Baboon. By the end of 2013, a total of 303 Geladas were living in 21 zoos across Europe, which are all part of a European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), managed by NaturZoo. 

The Gelada Baboon is native to the Ethiopian Highlands of Africa and spends much of their time, in the wild, foraging in grasslands. They are currently listed as “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List, but their populations have reduced from an estimated 440,000 in the 1970s to around 200,000 in 2008.  Major threats to the Gelada, in the wild, are a reduction of their range as a result of agricultural expansion and shooting of them as crop pests. Threats that once existed, but no longer do, are trapping for uses as laboratory animals and killing them to uses in making clothing.

The sex of the new baby is still unknown, but keepers are crossing their fingers for a female.  Geladas prefer a ‘harem-like’ social unit, consisting of one adult male and several females, with their offspring. Currently, there is a surplus of males within the zoo’s roster, and a new female would not only even the playing field, but provide a viable candidate for the future of the breeding program.

More amazing pics, below the fold!

It is the peak of the nesting and hatching season in the Marsh Aviary at NaturZoo Rheine, the home of a large mixed colony of coastal birds like Ruffs, Redshanks, Lapwings and Avocets. NaturZoo Rheine has been renowned as an expert for breeding waders for decades. Every year at least dozens and up to more than a hundred chicks of the different species are reared and distributed to zoos worldwide. However, working with these birds is never routine and there are always challenges in husbandry.

Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) chicks are extremely agile from hatching on. This is evidenced in their food searching skills – their ability to filter and pick up small particles of food from the water surface. Adults care well for the chicks, guiding, defending and warming them and scooping them up into their plumage. However, most of these chicks have been reared by zookeepers to ensure balanced care as it's not guaranteed in the large colony in the aviary because of territoriality and rivalry among the birds.

NaturZoo Rheine's Humboldt Penguin colony has been especially prolific this year: ten breeding pairs have nested and laid eggs, and so far, eight chicks have hatched! The German zoo has housed Humboldt Penguins for over forty years and has never had so many hatchlings before.

Most of the action is happening in the nests, where both parents help to raise the young, but with some luck, zoo visitors may catch a peek at the chicks.

Photo credit: NaturZoo Rheine

See and read more after the fold.